Margaret Thatcher Quotes

262 Sourced Quotes

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

Margaret Thatcher
Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.

Margaret Thatcher
There's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.

Margaret Thatcher
I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, as long as they do what I say.

Margaret Thatcher
Personal virtue is no substitute for political hard-headedness.

Margaret Thatcher
Let me make one thing absolutely clear. The National Health Service is safe with us.

Margaret Thatcher
We have to get our production and our earnings into balance. There's no easy popularity in what we are proposing, but it is fundamentally sound. Yet I believe people accept there is no real alternative.

Margaret Thatcher
We went back on a very similar manifesto to things I believe in. The difference is that after eighteen months to two years he did the biggest U-turn on policy of all time and started to go the wrong way. In the end, that cost us the next election.

Margaret Thatcher
It is exciting to have a real crisis on your hands, when you have spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment.
On the Falklands campaign, 1982

Margaret Thatcher
It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

Margaret Thatcher
It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.

Margaret Thatcher
People on all levels of income are better off than they were in 1979. The hon. Gentleman is saying that he would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That way one will never create the wealth for better social services. as we have. What a policy. Yes, he would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy.

Margaret Thatcher
The freedom of peoples depends fundamentally on the rule of law, a fair legal system. The place to have trials or accusations is a court of law, the Common Law that has come right up from Magna Carta, which has come right up through the British courts – a court of law is the place where you deal with these matters. If you ever get trial by television or guilt by accusation, that day freedom dies because you have not had it done with all of the careful rules that have developed in a court of law. Press and television rely on freedom. Those who rely on freedom must uphold the rule of law and have a duty and a responsibility to do so and not try to substitute their own system for it.

Margaret Thatcher
In the same period that the Americans have lived under one constitution our French friends notched up five. A Punch cartoon has a 19th century Englishman asking a librarian for a copy of the French constitution, only to be told: 'I am sorry Sir, we do not stock periodicals.'

Margaret Thatcher
Home is where you come to when you have nothing better to do.

Margaret Thatcher
But because we accept the sanctity of life, the responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ expressed so well in the hymn: 'When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. My richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.'

Margaret Thatcher
Just rejoice at the news and congratulate our armed forces and the Marines. Rejoice!

Margaret Thatcher
In considering our traditional ties with the Commonwealth we should remember that it now differs greatly from the entity which existed 20 or 30 years ago. Many of us do not feel quite the same allegiance to Archbishop Makarios or Doctor Nkrumah or to people like Jomo Kenyatta as we do towards Mr. Menzies of Australia.

Margaret Thatcher
Patched-up diplomatic solutions designed to answer the needs of the moment rarely last, and as they unravel they can actually make things worse.

Margaret Thatcher
I am not sure what is meant by those who say that the Party should return to something called "One Nation Conservatism". As far as I can tell by their views on European federalism, such people's creed would be better described as "No Nation Conservatism".

Margaret Thatcher
We do not believe that if you cut back what government does you diminish its authority. On the contrary, a government that did less, and therefore did better, would strengthen its authority.

Margaret Thatcher
If my critics saw me walking over the Thames, they would say it was because I couldn't swim.

Margaret Thatcher
In church on Sunday morning—it was a lovely morning and we haven't had many lovely days—the sun was coming through a stained glass window and falling on some flowers, falling right across the church. It just occurred to me that this was the day I was meant not to see. Then all of a sudden I thought, 'there are some of my dearest friends who are not seeing this day.'
After the Brighton bombing

Margaret Thatcher
In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.

Margaret Thatcher
Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.

Margaret Thatcher